Heading to the John Deere Classic? Edwards Creative shows the way

Long-time creative associate to the JDC, Cathy Edwards, CEO of the Milan design firm, said the company first joined the club in 2008. 

However, Cathy said their team’s work was seen on the green before that, including her husband’s. 

Steve Edwards, founder of Edwards Creative, said he helped create the course’s first, giant golf ball for the 2000 JDC.

At the time, Steve Edwards worked for Midwest Exhibits, a former design company in Davenport, where he assisted in the construction and creation of the 6-feet-tall golf ball. 

The course now houses three, larger-than-life sized golf balls, all created by the team at Edwards Creative, he said. 

Cathy Edwards said for their team, “it’s all about the details.” 

The two additional golf balls, she said, were created in 2019 and have dimple patterns that match a modern golf ball. 

“There’s smaller and larger dimples on it, which is a technological advancement in ball flight,” she said. 

When the company first joined the JDC, she said they mainly created wayfinding and branding signage. Visitors will find Edwards Creative signage on their way into the JDC, as well as scattered throughout the course. 

“When new people come on the course, and they need identification for their carts or the office trailers,” Edwards said. “You also need signage that helps people understand the concert flow for patrons. All of those things that every tournament has to have on the course to keep people safe and have a good experience while they’re there.” 

It took a total of four semitruck trailers and roughly 20 flatbed trips to transport all of the materials for this year’s JDC, Edwards said.

She said they have created thousands of signs for the event each year, including the classic quiet sign. In the past, Edwards said the company created corn-inspired “quiet” signs for golfers and spectators to use saying ‘I’m all ears’. 

This year’s novelty quiet sign reads ‘Shut the front door’ and is designed to look like a house, Edwards said, for one of the event’s sponsors.

Over the years, Edwards Creative has worked with John Deere stakeholders and the tournament office to create further brand activation on the course, she said, such as the giant golf balls. 

“A lot of custom building and a lot of carpentry,” Edwards said. “That’s really how it shifted. We do a lot of design ideation which brings things to life on a larger scale, or even on a regular, real life scale.” 

Tim Wren, director of sales and museum services, said the word “signage” doesn’t begin to encompass what all their team is capable of and creates for the JDC each year. 

“I think the word ‘signage’ is sometimes a negative connotation for people, that it’s just a small, yard sign,” Wren said. 

He said the company is known for its giant driver sculpture, which was first featured in the 2018 JDC. 

The 19-feet-tall club was quite a hit, Wren said.

Weighing nearly a ton, Edwards said, the giant driver is attached to the arm of a John Deere excavator. 

“It’s about celebrating the John Deere brand and finding ways to bring awareness to John Deere equipment, culture and brand,” she said. “That’s really what it is, and so these ideas come out of that. How do you make an excavator speak to the golf experience? You put a driver on the end of it.” 

She said each year their team refurbishes the sculpture, updating it to better match the look of today’s drivers. This year, Edwards said, the driver received a new fiberglass front, as well as a new graphic pattern. 

The company also created the giant silo, she said, which can be found on the course labeled silo 1837, the year John Deere was founded. 

“It always comes back to John Deere,” she said.

The Classic is a “all hands on deck” type of project, she said, with every team member working towards the event’s creation and reality. 

Edwards said the team first starts brainstorming in collaboration with John Deere as early as five months in advance. Around three months out, the company works to finalize all of the art. 

“First you have designers who are ideating, coming up with sketches and renderings,” she said. “Then you have industrial designers figuring out how to build it, and then you move into the fabricators who build it all.” 

With 40 members on staff, she said the work moves throughout the building and is overseen by herself, as well as two additional project managers.  

“Our team is second to none,” Edwards said. “We are a strong, creative team of professionals who just love what we do. This validates the fun we have.”

She said the company also designs wooden walls and structures, such as bars, that are placed within the JDC’s hospitality suite tents. 

“So they feel like they’re in more of a corporate setting instead of just a tent,” Edwards said. “It might be corporate clients that are using the hospitality suites, so they choose to do more in the suites to have them ready for their clients.” 

The 10-feet-tall walls can attach to one another to create an entire wall within the tent, she said. 

A week before the JDC is what the team at Edwards Creative calls “advance week”. Edwards said during this time, the company makes sure everything is ready to go on the course for the upcoming week. 

She said an Edwards Creative employee will be “on call” at the JDC throughout the week, ensuring nothing goes wrong at the event. The company has its own trailer on site, full of graphic design materials. 

“It’s a whole on-site office with a production department,” Edwards said. “He goes out all day and fixes or updates things, creates graphics and can send things back to the office. He’ll set up art and send it back here for a larger print here in Milan, if it is something he can’t do in the smaller office. So, the tournament has access to him all day, every day.” 

While the team at Edwards Creative helps brings the JDC to life, Edwards said none of their work would be possible without the help of the event’s volunteers. 

“There’s a whole 2,000 volunteers, which really are the strength of the tournament, and they’re the ones who put the signs out,” she said. “To me, we can make all the signs in the world, but it requires all those volunteers to get out and make the tournament come to life. The message in this is that no matter what we do, if the volunteers aren’t there to support that effort, and make the tournament really come alive, nothing would happen.”